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Planroom, Construction

Bid packages turned into answers with the source page attached

A construction-document workflow built for structured extraction and project-scoped retrieval.

Built for: Construction estimating and preconstruction team

packages evaluated
15
packages evaluated
largest package documents
62
largest package documents
specification pages
1,543
specification pages
packs reviewed in depth
10
packs reviewed in depth

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Planroom case study overview: what we built, key numbers, and AI used

Sound familiar?

  • “We nearly missed a bid deadline because it was buried in an addendum.”
  • “A thousand-page spec means days of reading before we can even start pricing.”
  • “AI tools give us answers, but we cannot see which page they came from.”

How the system works.

  1. Step 1

    Project and document workspace

    Projects, documents, permissions, and team assignments organized per bid.

  2. Step 2

    Document processing pipeline

    OCR and parser workers extract content from PDFs, office files, emails, screenshots, and plan sets, then chunk and summarize it.

  3. Step 3

    Structured extraction

    Scope, quantities, schedule, compliance, cost, and risk pulled into defined fields, with evidence records linking back to the source.

  4. Step 4

    Project-scoped AI answers

    A LangGraph worker separates tool calls, retrieval review, and reasoning before answering, using Pinecone retrieval and the OpenAI Responses API.

  5. Step 5

    Tested against real packages

    Outputs were checked field by field against the original documents, not accepted because they read well.

What changed.

  • 15 real construction bid packages evaluated
  • A 62-document package with a 1,543-page specification processed
  • 10 output packs compared field by field against the source documents
  • Every answer traceable to the page it came from

The AI inside.

OpenAI Responses API

Answers project questions and produces structured extraction from bid documents

LangGraph

Runs the agent flow that separates tool calls, retrieval review, and reasoning

Pinecone

Stores document embeddings so answers retrieve the right source passages

OCR and parser workers

Read scanned and digital construction documents into text the system can use

The full stack.

Frontend

  • React
  • Next.js

Backend

  • Node.js
  • Express
  • TypeScript
  • Python

Data

  • PostgreSQL
  • S3
  • Pinecone

AI and automation

  • OpenAI Responses API
  • LangGraph
  • Embedding services
  • OCR and parser workers

Infrastructure

  • Pipeline checkpoints
  • Error records
  • Telemetry

This fits you if...

  • Your estimators spend days reading specs before pricing starts
  • Missing one deadline or requirement in a bid pack costs you the job
  • You need AI answers you can check against the source page

Start with a free Agent Audit. First agent live in one week

The Document Intake Agent brings this to your team.

Every contract, invoice, and bid pack becomes a checked record, with the source page attached.

Full project write-upRead it

Project overview

Construction-document analysis tested against real bid packages

Services: Document AI ; RAG Knowledge Systems ; AI Agents ; AI Workflow Automation
Delivery: Document processing, structured extraction, and project-scoped retrieval. Portfolio alias.

Project Snapshot

FigureWhat it represents
15 construction packagesDataset in the March 27 extraction-quality review
62 documentsLargest package described in that review
1,543 pagesSpecification within that package
10 output packsExtraction outputs examined in the review

These figures describe evaluation scope, not perfect extraction or production throughput.

The Problem

Bid information can be scattered across an invitation email, a drawing title block, a specification, and an addendum. The team needs more than a summary. It needs the deadline, scope, exclusions, compliance obligations, and the source behind each item.

Large documents made the problem harder. A field could be extracted somewhere in the output but fail to appear in the field the user needed. The March review found examples where a bid date existed in an entries list but was absent from the headline bid-due field.

That is a product correctness problem, even when the underlying text was read successfully.

What We Delivered

The platform organizes projects, documents, permissions, and team assignments. Processing services extract content, produce chunks and summaries, and build retrieval indexes. Evidence records preserve the connection to source material.

A project-scoped question endpoint passes tenant and project context to a Python retrieval worker. Its LangGraph flow separates tool calls, retrieval review, and further reasoning before returning an answer.

Structured extraction covers scope, quantities, schedule, compliance, cost, risk, and related project information. The ten-pack review compared outputs with the original documents rather than accepting fluent text as sufficient evidence.

What Testing Revealed

The review covered PDFs, office files, emails, screenshots, and plan sets. It reported strong project-identity capture, but also material gaps in deadlines, insurance, bonding, and risk outputs.

Those findings explain the need for field-level checks and source review. A result can look detailed while missing the one deadline that determines whether a contractor can submit a bid.

The case study does not claim that the historical gaps have all been eliminated. Current acceptance results are needed before attaching an accuracy percentage.

Results

The delivered system provides a project workspace, document-processing pipeline, structured outputs, retrieval, and evidence inspection. The available review establishes that it was exercised against fifteen real construction packages, including the large package described above.

The engineering record supports a tested document workflow. It does not support an error-free estimating claim.

Technology stack

React/Next.js; Node.js, Express, TypeScript; PostgreSQL and S3; OCR/parser workers; Pinecone and embedding services; Python, LangGraph, OpenAI Responses API; pipeline checkpoints, error records, and telemetry.

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